Nine towns on shortlist for nuclear waste dump

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An expert committee investigating locations to store nuclear waste created by institutions such as the Lucas Heights reactor has identified nine sites in NSW as suitable for a low-level dump.

The sites - including locations near Wagga Wagga, Narrandera, Nowra, Singleton and Deniliquin - are on a list of 22 drawn up by the Federal Government's National Store Advisory Committee last year.

Of the nine NSW sites, seven are in electorates held by Coalition MPs. Two are located in the Hunter Valley seat of Hunter, held by the Labor Party's energy spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon.

The Government is under enormous pressure to find a location for nuclear waste created by its institutions after it decided not to build a low-level dump near Woomera in South Australia earlier this year.

The NSW Environment Minister, Bob Debus, demanded all the sites that had been or were under consideration be made public.

"The onus is on the Prime Minister to demonstrate to all Australians that [the Federal Government's] plans for nuclear waste storage and transport are safe," Mr Debus said.

The state and territory governments are responsible for disposing of nuclear waste created by their own facilities. They are opposed to hosting the dump, which will eventually take the low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste produced by federal bodies.

Potential sites have also been identified in the Northern Territory (four), the ACT (three) and South Australia, Queensland and Victoria (two each). The Victorian sites, at Bandiana and Seymour, were deemed unsuitable by the Science Minister, Peter McGauran, last month.

Because most of the sites are on land owned by the Department of Defence, the state governments would be unable to mount a legal challenge against the building of any dump.

However, the co-operation of the government in the state or territory that ends up with the preferred site would be needed to organise transport corridors and emergency plans.

Mr Debus was particularly concerned about the listing of land near Nowra which is at present used by the navy as part of the HMAS Albatross base.

The site is in the middle of the marginal Liberal seat of Gilmore, which is held by the chairwoman of the defence and veterans affairs committee, Joanna Gash.

Ms Gash has previously had to fend off rumours that Jervis Bay was one of the sites being considered.

A spokeswoman for Mr McGauran referred to comments made by the minister in August when he accused the states of running a "scare campaign" speculating about possible dump sites.

The 2003 list was obsolete, the spokeswoman said, because the Federal Government was now considering what it calls a "co-location facility", which will store both low and intermediate nuclear waste.